3 minute read

Rugby league great turned undefeated heavyweight boxer is vowing to ruin Justin Huni's Olympics dream in Wednesday night's boxing blockbuster in Sydney.

An incensed Paul Gallen has branded Justis Huni a coward and is vowing to shatter the gold medal contender's Olympic dream in their heavyweight blockbuster on Wednesday night.

Furious that Huni's camp view him as offering little more than a pay packet and some profile before heading to Tokyo next month, Gallen is promising the undefeated Australian champion a brutal beat-down at Sydney's Darling Harbour.

"They're overlooking me, without a doubt. I've read all their comments," Gallen said in an explosive press conference on Monday.

"Their No.1 concern is the Olympics. That's their No.1 concern. Well, I'm here to tell all of them - Justis you're included - I'm here to do everything I can to make sure that you don't go to the Olympics.

"Whether it's break your jaw, break your face, break your arm, I don't care what it is. I'm going to bring everything I can to break something in you so that you don't go to the Olympics.

"That dream since you've been seven years old is going to be f****d.

"I don't care if it's your arm. You're lucky there'll be a referee in there."

Huni laughed off the threat, shrugging: "Bring it, bring it. Bring it on."

But Gallen continued the onslaught before turning on Huni's trainer-father Rocki.

Gallen pointed to Huni's withdrawal from the 2019 amateur world championships in Russia with illness as proof his rival didn't have the stomach for the fight when the going got tough.

Huni was scheduled to face top seed Kamshybek Kunkabayev of Kazakhstan.

"He said he had a sore stomach, said he had a sore stomach the whole week," Gallen said.

"But you fight every two days leading into that. So what was wrong with your stomach two days before that? Or the previous two days? Or the previous two days?

"You make the final and don't fight the final, you f*****g coward.

"It's like making a grand final and not playing a grand final. You had the chance to fight in a final and you dogged it.

"That's always going to be in you. That's always going to be there. Whether I find it or not, someone will find it one day and I'm determined to find it on Wednesday night.

"All I've got to do is find that chink in the armour and I expose it."

Gallen, undefeated himself in his 12 professional bouts, was having none of Rocki Huni trying to intervene.

"Rocki, Rocki, you know what the most embarrassing thing is? A father trying to live their failed sporting career through their son," he said.

"So sit there and shut up."

Promoter Dean Lonergan likened the looming showdown as Gallen being the "Eeyore" and Huni being "Winx".

Lonergan said Gallen had "less than zero" chance of winning and noting that even one bookmaking outlet had already paid out on a Huni victory.

"I've been called a donkey, a pig. I've been called everything," Gallen said.

"But I've got a big motor and I've got a big heart and I'm going to come forward at him the whole night and I'm going to hit him as hard in the first minute as I do in the 10th round.

"If it goes that far."